If you like this, please also upvote me on Reddit:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2wuybh/inflationbased_economy_is_essentially_a_scam/
----------------------------------------------

Think about it for a minute, here are some arguments:

How inflationary economics works:
1. Value of the currency falls -> Saving under the mattress is not feasible -> So we make deposit at a bank
2. Because you cannot save under the mattress, you need a loan to invest -> You go to a bank
3. Because of taking more and more loans ( see: Money creation, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqvKjsIxT_8 ), a never ending and self-sustaining debt is created in the system. You cannot ever completely repay this debt and it creates otherwise senseless investments aimed at repaying the debt -> Bank benefits
4. Because the money keeps losing value, you have to spend it -> This creates stupid, otherwise pointless consumption and production of goods & services, that are not really needed.

Cui bono ? Who benefits ? Banks of course.

However it works completely different a world based on deflationary economics:
1. Value of the currency rises -> Saving under the mattress is a valid way to make money -> Bank loses
2. Taking loans is not viable, because you would have to give back more in goods & services (+ interest) than you loaned -> Bank loses
3. Investments can be financed from savings, not loans -> Bank loses
4. Because money keep getting more value, it is not profittable to invest in weak buisnesses and buying things that you don't really need (it's better to keep the money under mattress) -> This lowers the amount of mindless consumption and increases investments into technologies that make real difference and bigger profits.

Who benefits ? Everyone except banks and over-hyped companies.

So IMO not only the deflation-based economy decreases banks' power over people, but it also shifts investments from focusing on mindless consumption gadgets into creating real change and things that matter.

Maybe the time for this centuries-old scam to end is now.

[Please upvote me on reddit:]

This is probably one of these "Elephant in the room" topics.
Everybody knows it, but nobody talks about it.

Most of new Intel chipsets have a deliberately built-in backdoor that allows :

• Remote access to your machine even when computer is turned off (but plugged to power & network socket). Intel's AMT is actually active when computer's power button is OFF.
• Hiding code of some apps & malware from the running system using sophisticated DRM scheme
• Installing a rootkit / trojan that cannot be removed even if the disk, RAM memory and BIOS are all wiped out clean.
• Run signed JAVA code outside of CPU !

What's more:

• It works outside of the control of CPU, system and BIOS
• It's closed source (obviously)
• Intel doesn't want to say how it works
• Intel (so NSA & US govt too) has secret keys, using which they can totally control your machine with totally no way of you detecting it
• It cannot be turned completely OFF (there is a BIOS switch, but as proven - it does not work fully)

Please upvote me on reddit:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2ri5a9/if_you_are_using_newer_intel_mainboard_with_intel/ (reddit thread got silently mod-removed again !)

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Active_Management_Technology
https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/active-management-technology
http://theinvisiblethings.blogspot.com/2013/08/thoughts-on-intels-upcoming-software.html
http://theinvisiblethings.blogspot.com/2013/09/thoughts-on-intels-upcoming-software.html

Related:
Discussion on polish Bitcoin forum:
https://forum.bitcoin.pl/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=16562
One of polish biggest IT news sites:
http://www.dobreprogramy.pl/Komputery-z-procesorami-Intela-sa-kontrolowane-przez-Intela,News,60132.html
https://twitter.com/rosyna/status/550702351703875584

PS.
Intel has been working on this technology for over 15 years, so their hands are deep in shit. They cannot be trusted (unless they publish the private keys and the source of the binary blobs they built in their systems).
Proof:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_Computing
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/06/25/why_intel_loves_palladium/
http://www.bluehaze.com.au/unix/palladium.html

(Yeah, this stuff is REALLY old, they have been working on screwing us over together with Microsoft for a looooooooong time)

EDIT:
Apparently for the remote control to work, you also need to have Intel network card, so not using any Intel network hardware should keep you safe - at least from remote attack.

[Am I making any sense, or is this one hell of a crazy idea ? Please bear with me.]

Just had an idea.

What if instead of mining just single valid block per 10 minutes, miners could mine (for example) 100 blocks simultaenously with 100 - times lower difficulty, which would then be treated as one single block in the blockchain ?

What i mean in detail:
1. Miners can mine X blocks simultaneously, all of which can be valid and added to the blockchain, but
2. Difficulty is X times lower (or insert proper difficulty calculation algorithm here)
3. Block reward is split by X. Each of the small-block rewards goes to the miner who mined it.
4. X adjusts automatically with difficulty Y. The bigger Y is, the bigger X becomes and the more pieces are produced each 10 minutes.
5. After all the small blocks are mined, they are merged back into one normal-sized block, which then is inserted into the blockchain.

This way, mining pools are not really necessary, every miner could mine solo (or in tiny pools). The biggest problem i see now with it is deciding which mini-blocks get included in the final big block.

Am I making any sense, or is this one hell of a crazy idea ? Please bear with me.

[least mention it]

It seems the solution to our 51% crisis has been already created and is called getblocktemplate.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Getblocktemplate
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/BIP_0022
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/BIP_0023

Or am I wrong somewhere ?

Another question is: Why aren't the big pools using it ?
Yet another question is: Why didn't Gavin at least mention it in his Bitcoin Foundation blog post ?

Also, check out (and possibly upvote) me on Reddit:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/284frp/solution_to_51_crisis_getblocktemplate/

That is weird, one day Electrum was connected normally and everything worked. And then, i closed it and started again. After I did that it never worked anymore.

There were absolutely no changes made to the system Electrum version (it was 1.9.7 and now it is 1.9.8 - still the same issue).

I have tried different servers on the list, I even tried connecting to IP (as I read on the forums that it may be a DNS issue).

The system is Linux Mint 16 (based on Ubuntu).

Any ideas ?

[It’s no longer in China’s favor to accumulate foreign-exchange reserves]

Well, this is not strictly Bitcoin article, but related. Also, some Bitcoin in comments below the article

“It’s no longer in China’s favor to accumulate foreign-exchange reserves,” Yi Gang, a deputy governor at the central bank, said in a speech organized by China Economists 50 Forum at Tsinghua University yesterday. The monetary authority will “basically” end normal intervention in the currency market and broaden the yuan’s daily trading range, Governor Zhou Xiaochuan wrote in an article in a guidebook explaining reforms outlined last week following a Communist Party meeting. Neither Yi nor Zhou gave a timeframe for any changes.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-20/pboc-says-no-longer-in-china-s-favor-to-boost-record-reserves.html

[WARNING FOR NOOBS:]

Look at the PM I just received :

[ WARNING FOR NOOBS: DO NOT CLICK THAT LINK BELOW ! ]

Be careful where you mine and exchange bitcoins for money. Most mining pools are a scam, bitcoin exchanges too(they will hold your money for months), look in the scammers section and see for yourself bticointakl.org/index.php?board=83.0

This is a scammer, trying to harvest Bitcointalk forum's logins & passwords. We should act immediately - perhaps an automatic external linking protection (like youtube) or tagging algorithm adding extra description to every outgoing link (like slashdot) should be added to the forum.

Algorithm such as this is easy to write and will save many noobs and people who misclick and don't read website URL's.

Also: Somebody please ban this motherfucker (and others like him) before they do a lot of harm.

[truly democratic]

In light of recent [1] events [2] (namely a member of Bitcoin Fundation suggesting that we should diffrentiate between "Good Bitcoins" and "Bad Bitcoins"), it becomes more and more obvious that the worst enemy of Bitcoin is the Bitcoin Foundation:

There are probably strong political pressures from USA which not only has very aggressive AML policies, but clearly is going in the direction of Fascism and Socialism while becoming more and more anti-democratic.

So what is the point of keeping Bitcoin Foundation in a country which is (or will be soon) an enemy of Bitcoin ?

Perhaps a truly democratic country should be used, such as Switzerland.

What do you think ?

[(in my opinion) is an outright coward afraid of the truth and logical reasoning]

This is a reply to "Is TradeFortress breaking the law?" topic. I started a new one, because Viceroy (in my opinion) is an outright coward afraid of the truth and logical reasoning.
He obviously made the topic a self-moderated one. Why make a poll self-moderated if you want to know the _REAL_ opinions of other people ? I mean what the hell ?

Also, check out the post of mine he deleted from his thread:

3) He owns, operates and promotes the idea that "ripple is a scam":
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=196813.0
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=212730.0

What does this have to do with anything ?
Ripple is a scam anyway (unless they stop lying and prove otherwise), the evidence is everywhere, whether TradeFortress is a criminal or not.

Ripple is closed source, not open, but that does not make them a scammer any more than Microsoft is a scammer for selling their software.

You have no idea what you are talking about (and being ignored by many people shows that you probably do that often).

Ripple is a scam NOT because they are closed source and centralized, but because they lie about being open source & decentralized, while being the opposite to gain investors and other suckers into their shady buisness.

If you have investigated the topic further (which would take less than 5 minutes literally) before insolently spreading your foolishness around, you would know.

(OMG, why do I even bother to talk to such people ?)

And his reply:

I have investigated and claims of scam are baseless.  You just do not like capitalism.  Take your troll elsewhere.

[And by "cluster Bitcoin client" I mean]

Hey, i was just wondering. Is anybody working on a cluster Bitcoin client yet ?

And by "cluster Bitcoin client" I mean:

- Works using networked sub-clients, each doing only part of the work (transaction signing / relaying / storing blockchain).
- Can be run on multiple machines utilizing all their processors and internet connections
- Can use multiple Internet connections at once
- Can be run on clusters, supercomputers, beowulfs, server farms etc.

Or maybe perhaps it has already been written, but I didn't notice it ?

[Nerds & Geeks IT geeks/enthusiasts will rule the world in about the next 20 years]

During random discussion it finally occured to me: Nerds & Geeks IT geeks/enthusiasts will rule the world in about the next 20 years. In my opinion, it is practically inevitable.

It is now pretty clear few basic technologies will be building blocks of the future and among them the 2 we already know:
- Internet: It has already changed the world. In the next 10-20 years practically EVERYTHING will be done using Internet to a some degree (if it already isn't ?). People won't know how to live without it. Internet is created & run by IT geeks.
- Bitcoin: It its highly probable that it will rewrite the whole financial system from the scratch, and with it - whole economy. And economy rules everything: from people, through companies to whole countries. Bitcoin is also run by IT geeks.

Some facts:
- Huge amount of financial wealth is already owned by IT enthusiasts because of new IT companies such as Google and Facebook.
- Because the IT enthusiasts rule the internet, they influence practically everybody's opinion
- The IT enthusiasts (including early adopters) will [probably] accumulate almost inconceivable amount of wealth because of Bitcoin. And people with the most wealth will rule
- The old people don't understand the new world and won't invest so much in new technologies (just look at Bloomberg/Fox Buisness interviews), so they will be gradually replaced by nerds on all positions of power

Also everybody should be actually quite happy with nerds as their new ruling elite. Reasons:
- Nerds IT geeks are smart.
- Nerds IT geeks are more logical than other people, so are less prone to manipulation
- Nerds IT geeks don't lust money as much as most other people (they care about gadgets and IT stuff instead).
- Nerds IT geeks don't lust power as much as most other people (they care about doing cool things with IT stuff instead). Which implies greater resistance to corruption.
- Nerds IT geeks actually know how to build, run & test complex systems, so if they were to rule globally, that would improve the world a lot (just look what the Internet has done already, and much much more can be achieved)

So if you are not an IT geek, you should welcome your new geeky overlords.

If you are an IT geek, you should prepare for the inevitable and try to be a good ruler for your future underlings.

I know all of this may sound funny, but I am actually quite serious.

[seriously]

SELL SELL SELL !!

(Or perhaps maybe just calm down and don't let "big media" propagandists/speculators make you lose so that they can buy more)

----
But i mean - seriously. What the hell is wrong with some people ? Correction was obvious and totally expected. Is there somebody here who didn't expect it ?

The currency is young, unstable and unpredictable. As all new things are.

[WTF is this even supposed to mean ?!]

I tried to buy some Litecoins on BTC-E.com yesterday.

I tried a test transaction first, it was sent immediately. Then, I tried the bigger transaction... several hours have passed and I am still waiting.

The support replied to me:

up to 48 hours

WTF is this even supposed to mean ?!

Proof:
http://explorer.litecoin.net/address/LfkyWuBj9dvaHJ7LNGaoPc4PhzSRmFVZ8S
http://imgur.com/CS3CsGR

Also they say that Litecoin withdrawals are supposedly instant. Proof:


So is BTC-E doing fractional reserve or what ? Are they a scam ?
They seem to be big and established market - this is the reason i tried trading with them.

[better than stupid social rules, because they cannot be broken easily]

Well, me and Luke-Jr had a little argument lately. Link to full discussion:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=150493.220

So I am curious - what is your opinion after looking at the discussion - is Luke-Jr an enemy of Bitcoin ?
Should you double-check his commits in the source ?

Short transcript of the most interesting parts:

Wrong on all counts. There are two realities. The "realworld-reality", and "Internet-reality".
I wonder how didn't you notice that before. We are creating a new, better world here. A world where free market without government intervention is created and ensured automatically using mathematic algorithms which are better than stupid social rules, because they cannot be broken easily.

People are always the weakest chain and that is the reason Bitcoin exists: to route around human imperfections.

No. This is your delusion. Even if other nuts share it, it isn't reality.

It isn't reality ? Then we can make it reality. Impossible is nothing.

No thanks, as bad as the current governments are, what you propose is far worse.

To be clear...  what is that am I proposing, exactly ?

"A world where free market without government intervention is created and ensured"

Isn't this kind of what Bitcoin was created for ?
Isn't this kind of what Bitcoin market currently is ?
Isn't this kind of what libertarianism is all about ?

Doesn't that statement make you kind of an enemy of the whole Bitcoin concept (and libertarian spandpoint) by the way ?

You are still with us, or against us, because now I don't exactly see your position clearly ?

No, on the first two.
Libertarismism is not anti-government, just minimal government. And Bitcoin is not the same thing as libertarianism.
I will freely admit to being an enemy of libertarianism. The form of government that seems to work out best in practice is a monarchy.

If you are enemy of Libertarianism, the you are an enemy of Bitcoin as well.
Because Bitcoin is all about libertarianism and crypto-anarchy ?

I don't get it. How come you are even a Bitcoin developer with such views/outlooks ?

However i advise you to check the whole discussion. Veeeeery interesting.



EDIT:
Also you may want to check this out before making an opinion:

I got caught into an edit war on Bitcoin Wiki over the SatoshiDice article when I tried to make the SatoshiDice article more neutral by removing all straight "SatoshiDice is a DDoS attack" accusations, which weren't even backed by any references. Eventually he told me he would only allow my edits to stay if I specifically told in the article that SatoshiDice is a DDoS attack. Looking at his previous contributions in the wiki ( 1, 2, 3 ), it wasn't the first time his "facts" were met by criticism.

Plus this:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=133974.20

I did an interesting Google trends query today. Well, actually the results were most interesting:

http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=bitcoin%2C%20palladium%2C%20forex%2C%20liberty%20reserve&date=today%203-m&cmpt=q



Not bad i would say, not bad at all.

http://torrentfreak.com/vpn-services-that-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2013-edition-130302/

Bitcoin mentioned multiple times, as most of VPN services accept Bitcoin. Also multiple mentions in comments.

Because the previous poll sucked hard, i made a new, proper one.

Choose wisely, your future may depend on it.

[**significant**]

So i was thinking heavily and it produced questions which will help me (and hopefully some other people) to better understand how the Bitcoin protocol works.
If on any level i have made a mistake somebody correct me please.

Suppose that somebody (like Botnet, Russian Mafia, Government or FED) has amassed **significant** resources both in money and hashpower (HP > 51%), and following happens.

1. That somebody (let's call im adversary) pays a very large sum of BTC (let's say 1.000.000 BTC) to an exchange
2. Adversary waits for X blocks* (let's say 100 blocks), while secretly building his own alternate (double spending) chain on the side.
2a. Meanwhile, the exchange & people keep moving the Bitcoins , so the original sum of bitcoins gets divided like this:



3. After block 101 passes, adversary introduces his alternate, longer chain which double spends the original 1.000.000 transaction to an address different than the original address, and erases the original chain which divided the sum to multiple addresses from existence.
4. ?? ??
5. PROFIT ?

* - That is possible because he has >51% of HP, so he can always produce chain faster than the rest of the network. Also @see Meni Rosenfeld thread and whitepaper for details.

I have following questions:
a) What happens to all the transactions from the original chain that happened after the 1.000.000 BTC transaction ? Are they all erased from existence ?
b) What happens if the alternate chain completely drops many other (unrelated) transactions that were previously accepted into blocks and received from 1 to 100 confirmations ? Are these transactions completely lost (I) ? Or perhaps only confirmations are lost, and the transactions are unconfirmed (II) ?
b1) If only the transactions' confimations are erased (II), will the network re-relay all the 0-confirmation transactions that were done before ? Will the network keep information about unconfirmed transactions which do not exist anymore ?
c) Will the original chain be erased from every client's database instantly the moment when a longer valid chain is supplied, or is there some other mechanism at work here ?

[UPDATE:]

I was thinking about how to curb the problem of thread necromancy, and came with following idea.

1. Show a skull icon like this (but smaller): on topic list next to threads that are not touched for 3/X months or more.
2. When replying to an old thread, show a big font red warning in a box like " Warning: The thread you are posting in is long dead"

What do you think ?

UPDATE:
3. When reading an old thread, show a big font red warning in a box like "Warning: The thread you are reading is long dead"

Perhaps bigger version of the icon could be added to warnings as well, so they are more noticeable.

I think that topics on this forum should automatically close after a certain period of inactivity time (perhaps 3 months or less) to prevent necromancers from casting their spells and thus creating an unbelievable mess.

Who's with me ?